Novots Loc: Grand Forks, ND

I had the older version which seemed if I recall correctly seem to get better reviews. Its been a few years! Need to be able to shoot at least 500 shutter speed for basketball so if your camera will let you bump your ISO to an acceptable level you should be good. I wish I still had it though I now shoot Olympus MFT. I always shot under the basket, or to the side of the basket on the floor. Thanks for the update, good luck in your search. I would love to see how the stabilized lens shoots, might be a fantastic lens. Sigma has certainly stepped up its game (no pun intended) and is producing numerous high quality lenses, especially the ART lenses. novots.

Dun1 Loc: Atlanta, GA

Most photographers who shoot sports will have a 70-200 2.8 lens in their bag, especially when shooting indoor events. If you watch most college games in person, you might notice the photographers using a lens a body for near shots, when the play moves to the far end of the floor, using a second body with a longer lens to get those shots. As play under on goal is finished, you can see, what I call rotation to the second body to capture the far end of the floor or basket. Depending on the location I was allowed to shoot from, lighting, I have also used a 50 mm 1.4 lens, a 28 mm 2.8 lens, a 28-135. The biggest challenge is to use the lenses and bodies you have to get the best results at a specific venue

sldghamr

amfoto1, in the ideal workflow (or just for images that are "worthy"), you would do sharpening last, and likely in Photoshop? I'm guessing it's so that you can adjust the specific parameters for the finished pixel size (whether using USM or the high-pass/edge method - or whatever), as opposed to Lightroom where the same values are used regardless of the output image size? And as an aside, anyone know if the sharpening method used (not the option in the export dialog but in the "Details" panel) is unsharp mask? The "masking" parameter *seems* like an obvious indicator of that? But could be *only* that - to restrict where the sharpening is applied.

sldghamr

Dun1, I don't have that luxury yet, but I noticed the same at a Timberwolves game (only NBA game I've ever been to). My first DSLR was a Rebel XTi (which I still have), which I'm convinced suffered from a design flaw in that model, everything was back-focused, even after sending it in 4 times in the first year, it never improved. I was half-tempted to try the Sigma 85/1.4 which at the time was known to have significant front-focus, and see if it would come out in the "wash". Squirrel! Any comments from anyone on the idea of using like the Sigma f3.5 10-20 and just manually set the focus to say 6 feet for "from-the-hip" close-up shots on a (low end) cropped body - as a poor-man's second body? I may just have to rent and find out for myself.

Dun1 Loc: Atlanta, GA

Don't throw yourself under the bus, my first attempt at shooting a game was with a point and shoot camera, the players looked like matches that were stuck in a sand box. My first DSLR was a Canon XT when it broke the price threshold, and was selling for under $1,000. My first lens that I a Canon 70-300 lens, the entry level of that lens. I financed my purchases over a period of time. My purchase of the Canon 70-200 mm 2.8 lens did not take place until I had saved money to buy the lens, either by combining money that I had gotten for birthdays, etc. to finance that lens.
You might try taking the camera battery out of the camera, before you do you may wish to record the settings you had the best results with before removing the battery, the camera body will when re-started with the default battery settings.

sldghamr

Sorry, not trying to be dense, but what all are you saying? Remove the battery to reset it - that may fix the focus issue?

Dun1 Loc: Atlanta, GA

I suggested removing the battery to see if there was some saved setting in functions that might be preventing you from achieving sharp focus.

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

I agree totally. Just about two years ago, I noticed some pictures of March Madness taken at ISO=8000 with a Canon 1Dxii.
http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-380030-1.html

Of course, that is out of the budget of most of us, but these days I would recommend spending money on a more capable body rather than a larger aperture lens, which brings both more weight and thinner DOF with it.